This is one of the things I love about England. The flowers really bloom, and the daffodils in spring-time pop up everywhere. It's over now, because we're well into summer, but it was so pretty, and so English.

This is where I had my birthday dinner. I had just arrived in London, and this place was perfect. I gathered the few close friends I have in London together in a private room on the top floor, and when we arrived this was how the room was set up. Just lovely, and perfect because we could mingle, wander around, and make as much noise as we wanted.

Shah 'Abbas was the ruler of Iran from 1587-1689, and he collected paintings, carpets, ceramics from all over the world. The show at the BM was beautiful. The intricacy of the work in the miniature paintings, and the hours that must have been spent on the silk carpets... incredible.

I didn't realise until today, reading this article in the Times, that William Blake wrote Jerusalem (as a preface to a longer poem called Milton), and that he was writing about London:

"In the greatest of his epics, Jerusalem, Blake, carrying the sun as a lamp, travels through London as a pilgrim. The streets of the city are avenues into the spiritual world. That is why the “dark Satanic mills” of Jerusalem can be found in the heart of the capital. They are emblems of eternity, but have a specific and local identity."

I'm not religious, but Jerusalem was one of my favourite hymns in high school, and it's strange to discover that it was originally a Blake poem, set to music by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916.

This is from another show I saw recently, at the Royal Academy. Every art-work was extraordinary. Incredibly detailed, colourful and humorous. Surprisingly modern too, considering the artist, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, died in 1861.

I saw this show at the Barbican, not long after I arrived in London. Le Corbusier (1887-1965) was a pioneer of modern architecture, with radical ideas about changing the way we live through urban planning. He is equally celebrated and scorned, so the show was quite interesting.

Welcome to my blog, where I'll post bits and pieces (photos, restaurants I've been to, places I've visited, exhibitions I've seen) as a kind of on-line diary. This is a bit of an experiment at the moment. We'll see how it goes...